Plugins

A very powerful feature of Kopete is the capability of using plugins. There is a set of plugins pre-installed (new ones can be installed for example with your Linux® distro's package manager) and they can be enabled and configured under Plugins. You can enable them by setting the tick into the respective checkbox. Most of them are again self-explanatory, but the most useful ones will be explained here anyway. A very helpful plugin is the History. With this option enabled, Kopete will log all your chats and write it onto your hard disk. You can read it in your chat window, when you select the View History icon or you open it with Tools → View History.

OTR

One of the most important plugins considering privacy issues is OTR. This piece of software encrypts your entire conversation from one end to the other and makes it impossible for third persons to read your conversation. After you enabled the plugin, you have to open its settings (click on the wrench icon) and Generate a key.

Generate an OTR key

This may take a while and you have to wait until Kopete finished. After that close the OTR window with OK and Apply the changes. You eventually will have to restart Kopete after this. Then open a chat window of the contact you want to safely communicate with. Go to Tools → OTR Settings → Start OTR Session or use the icon OTR Encryption → Start OTR Session. Kopete will start the session if your contact is capable of OTR, otherwise you'll receive an error message.

First use of OTR

To ensure your added contact is really the one he or she is pretending, it's necessary to authenticate him or her one time. You can do this by calling Tools → OTR Settings → Authenticate contact. You may choose between three options:

The first one is to ask your chat partner a question whose answer can only be known by him or her and you.

The next possibility is a secret passphrase your partner has to know (you may consider giving the secret to him or her via another secure communication channel, e.g. telephone).

Thirdly, there's the option of manually checking the OTR fingerprint. This is the most secure option, but it's not very handy and if you can choose one of the others it may be more comfortable and faster. When checking the fingerprint, you have to ask your partner for his or her OTR fingerprint over a secure connection (e.g. telephone or encrypted E-Mail) so that the fingerprint can be checked.

Let's assume we choose option one and ask our partner a question. Type it into the field and define the expected answer your partner has to give, so that he or she can be authenticated.

Asking a secret question

When we continue, your partner will see the question and if the answer is correct, OTR is set up ready now.

Finished OTR setup

Your partner may do the same thing in return, so when you see a window asking you for authentication just answer the question and you are an authenticated user in your friend's contact list, too.

OTR authentication

Every time you communicate safely, you'll see the green armored keylock icon at the top of your chat window. To finish the secure connection, you can either close your chat window or click on OTR Encryption → End OTR Session.